Immaculate Conception

Saint Bernadette Soubirous and Our Lady of Lourdes

In 1858, a young girl was walking with her sister and a friend near her village to collect firewood for her poor family. The other two crossed the creek near a grotto where pigs used to shelter after they were fed by the farmers, but the girl did not due to her poor health. As she waited near the grotto, she heard a noise like a wind blowing yet none of the trees stirred. She looked up at the top of the grotto and saw a most beautiful woman smile at her. Over the following weeks, this girl, Bernadette Soubirous, would pray with this lady and obey her requests. When she finally asked the lady who she was, the lady told her, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

This is the wonderful account of the apparitions of Our Lady at the small town of Lourdes in France. Today, Lourdes is one of the most visited religious sites in the world. We are blessed to have an image of both Our Lady of Lourdes and Saint Bernadette in our church. It is appropriate to remember this apparition today in light of this glorious feast day commemorating the first moments of the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary. But we ought to ask ourselves two things. Why did this happen to Mary? And why would she identify herself by this rather formal, theological term?

What we celebrate today is the greatest grace a human being has ever received from God. Pope Pius IX definitively defined the Immaculate Conception in 1854, only a few years before the visions at Lourdes, as the dogma that “the most Blessed Virgin Mary at the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in virtue of the merits of Christ Jesus, the Savior of the human race, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin.” (Ineffabilis Deus) But what use is this singular grace and privilege? Why does God grant unto Mary this removal of any and all effects of sin on her person? The answer lies in the season during which we find ourselves: the season of Advent.

We are drawing closer and closer to the birth of Jesus Christ our Savior. This season of Advent is a time for remembering the preparation for this birth along with the reason for this birth. Our blessed Mother was not the first human without original sin: our first parents, Adam and Eve, were also created without sin or any stain of sin upon their souls. However, though they were free of sin, they chose to disobey God and thus fell from that state of original grace and union with God and hindered the rest of humanity, until the Savior would come and restore us to that union.

The Savior of humanity would have to undo the knot of disobedience wrought by our first parents through His own complete obedience to God. Only a completely opposite act could reverse that initial act in the garden. Saint Paul sees Jesus as the new Adam in his letter to the Romans, undoing the actions of the first Adam by obeying God rather than disobeying, by submission rather than betrayal (cf. Rom 5:12-18). But Adam did not fall alone; he fell along with Eve, who also willed to sin. But if Jesus is the new Adam undoing the old Adam’s work, who will be the new Eve to do the same thing?

Not only that, but the Savior needs a human body in order to remove sin from humanity. This Savior, while removing sin from the human condition, was free from sin Himself, being God in the flesh, for God contains no sin or evil in His divine substance and sin cannot remain in the divine presence. We might remember that God commanded Moses and the ancient Israelites to build the ark of the covenant which contained the divine presence in the ancient Temple. God commanded that this ark be made of the finest gold and best materials and that it could not be touched by anything lest it be made impure. If the Lord commands this for the symbol of His presence among Israel, how much shall He demand the greatest and the best of the womb in which He shall be conceived by the Holy Spirit and take on our flesh in such need of purification?

This solemnity, then, marks the immediate preparation for Christmas Day, for the birth of Christ our Savior. In order to take on our flesh, He needs the perfect woman. In order to undo the work of Adam, He needs an Eve to work with Him. In order to overturn our act of disobedience, He needs someone to make a great sign of obedience. This is why the Virgin is graced with the fruits of Christ’s salvation beforehand: that she might cooperate fully and completely when the angel tells her that she will be the mother of the Savior. That instead of Eve’s no, Mary will say “Let it be done to me.”

Through her immaculate conception, the Mother of God is able to aid all of humanity by cooperating in the divine work of salvation. But her cooperation did not end with her acceptance of this son; it continues even now with her reigning with her son over heaven and earth. Just as she came to that grotto of pigs in Lourdes, so too does our Lady come to aid us still tainted by the filth of sin. Just as she smiled at Saint Bernadette and called her to prayer and penance, so too does she smile down at we her children and call us, like a good mother, to be the best we can be, to be saints. Just as she revealed herself as the Immaculate Conception when asked who she was, she still reveals herself to be for us the singular vessel of grace and devotion, the lowly handmaid of the Lord elevated as the Queen of heaven and earth.

Let us rejoice in the Immaculate Conception this day, as we prepare for Christmas. Let us rejoice that the Virgin Mother of God did cooperate with God and help bring about our salvation. Let us praise God who humbles Himself to drop down like dew from Heaven and to become the child of so wonderful a mother. Let us also pray to her that we may be freed of our sinfulness and become more like her every day: obedient, loving, and faithful to God. Let us rejoice in Mary so that we may rejoice more greatly in Jesus her Son.